Plz enlighten us as to how you was able to control aggro on your swarm pets ? Not casting them is not control.
Swarm pets are not what the topic is about. It is about pets, not swarm pets.The latest nerf was way horrid! you can't even cast spells before the pet owner ends up tanking. SO mages and Necro's and Beast lords get screwed. The idea of the topic was to resolve the issue of pet agro by simply allowing the pet owner to have the control of the aggressiveness of his/her(s) pet to accommodate the situation and allow a better experience to the players and being able to accommodate the group and or solo. As of now all pets are useless and makes the game very much less fun for the pet classes to play! in fact this actually I am beginning to wonder why should continue giving money to my gold accts I mean I am not enjoying this anymore. My pet has me tanking by the 3rd spell. FYI they did a nerf again pet class don't and cant hold agro! I mean really cant hold agro at all
Swarmpets IS what this topic is about as well. Not only the mainpets, but our swarmpets suffer the same aggronerf, just that the Provocative Demeanor won't land on our swarmpets, thus removing magician's only tool of crowd control.
Silent Casting is a Casters friend when doing Burns as for melee I raided a bst for years and there is a agro reducing AA for that
The changes they made in the Dec 9th patch (obliterating pet aggro rules well over a decade old) was implemented due to TLP player's concern about pet aggro. Live servers have suffered the consequences. "Adjusted how NPCs choose a melee target in relation to player pets: - - It is now possible for a pet to be the target of an NPC's melee attacks if it has the highest aggro with other players in range. - - This behavior can be adjusted on a per NPC basis and will currently be disabled for all current and previous raid difficulty NPCs. - - It is additionally possible for some NPCs to ignore the hatred generated by pets and instead attribute a portion of that hatred toward the owner. This behavior will be in play on raid targets on progression servers. " I find it amusing how they always say they don't like to change the "old spaghetti code" due to unforeseen consequences and then go and do something like this. Guess what, DBG? You got a lot of unforeseen consequences, congratulations!!! It seems to me, "It is additionally possible for some NPCs to ignore the hatred generated by pets and instead attribute a portion of that hatred toward the owner." is working all the time on Live servers, not just on raids on time locked progression servers as stated by DBG. Companion's Provocative Demeanor is obviously DBG's idea to fix pet aggro, which they know is broken, and it just doesn't work. The best thing they could do is remove the changes they implemented in the Dec 9th patch. (I know, it will never happen) Failing that, they need to at least double the hate generated by Companion's Provocative Demeanor from 75% to 150%....maybe that would work. *shrugs I cast Companion's Provocative Demeanor on my pet and it is useless, imho. All I get to do in game play currently, when my pet is tanking, is cast Remorseless Servant on the mob. One or two nukes and up up up goes my hate and the mob goes for me. You can still pet tank, sure. It is just that the fight takes forever since you can't nuke. Usually towards the end of the fight (mob at 20% or so) the mob will go and attack the healer (real or merc) in the group. Forget about the pet crowd controlling multiple mobs 2 or 3 like they used to be able to do. As many others have stated above, swarm pets are now very broken and don't hold aggro like they used to. DBG needs to, at the minimum, have them automatically spawn with the Companion's Provocative Demeanor buff on. If folks don't want the pet aggro during a fight they can click off the Companion's Provocative Demeanor buff (if had been cast on the pet) and cast Companion's Calm Demeanor on the pet instead. I have personally never used Companion's Calm Demeanor since any tank I group with is easily able to take the aggro from my pet and I have never felt the need to use it.
If I was a mage instead of a necromancer with a 105 mage alt I would be quitting over this change. They seem to be trying to make the mages all quit.
If Calm demeanor would of worked on all pets not just your main pet it would of been a fix but really your main pet never needed fixed in the first place it was just swarm pets and servants. And for all the confused people that think this change was to fix anything on your normal pet you are mistaken the whole point of this change was to make servants and swarm pets less of a bother to tanks that have low endurance or when people are dying on raids but still need to move npc's around which is part of the tanks job positioning. Back when they nerfed fade they also took away the tanks ability to do this even when pets had aggro because a couple people used those gravity abilities for what they were not meant for snaking a single pull. Some of us warriors have been trying to get warlord's grasp to work like it should ever since but they refuse to even comment on that change. Which is how they usually respond to any revert a nerf comment.
In all seriousness what have they fixed in like the last year? Everything they change just breaks something that wasn't broken or further breaks something.
That's the problem. Changing things like this just has a ripple effect that impacts unforeseen situations.
There is a difference between "The Reason" this change was made and "The Issue" with pets. The reason: Progression server pets were too high on agro, causing problems for groups and some raid events after the December patch change allowing pets to take the attention of NPCs while PCs are in combat range. The issue: Live server swarm pets have no agro management/control. Once cast, they maintain high agro and can out agro some tanks. Pet classes' swarm pets were made for the duel function of dps and CC. If used for DPS, you run the risk of pulling agro from tank classes who have focus on more than 1 NPC. The problem, now: Live servers main pets and swarm pets can no longer take agro when needed. This can be seen when healer/dps mercs, which are poop agro, out agro these pets. The base agro was reduced way more than the Companion's Provocative Demeanor makes up for. Also, swarm pets lost their CC functionality.
Yeah, we're never going to an explanation for the pet changes screwing things up on live, because the changes were aimed at TLP problems. Just like the out of no where shadowrest change and removal. And standard procedure on unintended consequences from nerfs is to double down on the nerf until people get tired of complaining.
Thinning out the herd Mage alts/boxes were a dime a dozen, much like rangers, but probably much more prevalent after awhile. I haven't tested my necro's pet aggro since the patch - actually, I've only been on for about 2 hours in the last few days - but I'm not sure I even want to bother checking it out. The change had unintended consequences and all the blame should be directed at those god forsaken rogue pets! They are the bane of EQ. A second after popping them their aggro was suddenly through the roof. Hopefully regular pets get fixed back soon. And to make up for the lack of CC, magicians need VP or something.
If it were me, after the patch to allow pets to tank while PCs are within melee range (I love this change by the way)... I'd have given pet classes a new pet command to toggle on/off with an ability similar to Marr's Salvation that only worked on the pet under their control (not swarm pets or charmed pets). Adjust the values as desired to reduce the aggro that they generate. Then I would have taken swarm pets and made 2 versions of them on the same timer. One could have higher Aggro (give them Enraging Blow or Bold Attacks), higher HPs, higher AC for tanking / crowd control and one that has higher DPS (give them Calming Strike or make the opposite of Bold Attacks - Cowardly Attacks) with lower HPs and lower AC for doing damage. While it's an extra spell gem that might or might not need to be memorized depending on the situation, it would have given the pet casters more flexibility. Then you can go back through and fix things like Warrior pets as needed.
AGREE!!! ^^^ https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/the-backwards-slide.230327/#post-3390887 Tired of logging into a bunch of broken (some of which brought on by player's whining)....................
It is just Disgusting this change to pets. I was thinking of buying TBM for my box account but now there is not a chance in hell. If they do not fix this nerf soon this account will also drop to ftp.
